Overgrowing 2018: Year In Review 📆

[cannabissequoia]

Thanks, people

The past year in growing for me has been personally transformative and I
have learned a lot here at OG and in my growing. This place has become a second home and a vital primary social connection. “A lot” is an
understatement & oversimplification too. The magnificence of Overgrow is a subject unto itself for me to regale in another post.

I have tried various new-to-me things over the past year:

• photoperiod control

• Extremely porous/free-draining containers

• BOG “double-potting”

• Using soil bags as grow-bags

• SOMA-style bed w/vent tubes

• Using insecticide(before I did zero); Neem-pyrethrin, Spinosad, BT,
  essential oil mix.

• Light-deprivation plastic DIY greenhouse

• First pollination(s)/“chucks”

• SOMA-style traing/bending/breaking to create “knuckles” and reduce
  pre-floral stretching

• Got more & better bubble-bags

• LITFA

Things I have abandoned or ceased doing:

• fabric pots - my climate is very arid and I hand-water & suffer
  anxiety so they do not maintain moisture evenly for me. They are also a pain to transplant from without split “seams”.

• mammothP - while I feel it helps yields I can not justify it’s expense
  & hope that their PSBs are resident in my compost & vermi-compost. They ackowledge that in a natural environment mammothP tends to either die off or overtake & ruin native microbes.

• overwatering. embarassingly enough it took 3 years to tame this
  tendency and the anxious desire remains. @ReikoX’s LITFA genius is truly a gem for the over-zealous beginner.

Things that I would like to try:

• BRIX readings
• a cheap pH pen
• this crazy Sonoff thingamabob… thanks @anon58740919!
• growing in the ground outdoor
• SCROG outdoor

This was the first year I determined what caterpillar species was the
culrpit in ruining 80+% of my 2017 crop: corn earworm. The Colorado Hemp Pest indentification website is VERY useful-- search for it or find it
here on OG somewhere. BT spraying seemed to be the cure this year but I also endured some 4-5oz loss from Botrytis/budrot and can not help but
hold suspicion about a relationship there.

Overall, the insecticide treatment was probably a bit excessive (by me)
but my caterpillar disaster the previous year necessitated it for me.
This new year I intend to minimize it but still be vigilant and use the
same products, with emphassis on reducing the Spinosad. It is apparently a systemic agent & I feel it’s relatively new, historically speaking.

MegaCrop seems like a great product from the sample I used off-and-on
but it really seems to be excessive in Nitrogen. I still have some &
will continue to trial it on Cannabis & ornamentals/etc.

More spectacular has been the Nectar For The Gods liquid sample pack.
Using bottled nutrients is basically anathaema to me & to be avoided…
the dark side! So I’d really like to find a DIY alternative but am
considering a less-expensive, locally-made analog from groworganic.com.

Inducing sexual trait expression through long-dark-period for 2-3 days
in early vegetative growth, reverting to 18/6 is a new method I am in
the midst of experiencing. It has been 2 weeks and I can nearly ID some
of the males but feel they need another week to clearly indicate.

The variety of homegrown OG crosses & personal stashes is astounding. I began the year a frustrated seed-beggar, having 35 of 40 bagseed plants turn out male. But now I’m complete convert to seed-making and have shown it here on OG with my giveaway. Now my frustration is trying to figure out how to run all my new gear from you guys in a home MMJ space. What a difference!

This year I discovered “The Potcast” - a truly great resource for us. I
can’t thank Potty McPotface enough. The passion he shares about the
plant & hours put into the shows are so welcome. Thanks for doing his
show @BOGseeds!

If anything my views on the plant have hardened into dogma, to be
honest. A friend once said “I don’t trust people who don’t smoke weed”
and I have to basically concur with that, even if being hyperbolic.

The relatively rapid legal & regulatory changes happening worldwide
truly demonstrate the hypocritical vaccuousness & malevolent terror
imposed on Cannabis (use). As mentioned elsewhere on OG & by others, I do feel that the collective guard can NEVER be let down and our shared
mission is as definite as ever; Home/personal cultivation remains a
conflict to the modern regulatory models & propositions just as personal
distillation & brewing & will likewise be suppressed, minimally
tolerated, and even outright prohibited. The war is NOT over, Mr.
Morrison.

There is sure to be stuff I have forgotten to note here.

So to 2019 I look outward & strive to sharpen what is already forged.

1.0.1